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Population Council

The Population Council is an international, nonprofit, non-governmental organization based in New York City.

History

Founding (1952)

The Population Council was established in 1952 by John D. Rockefeller III in order to channel his interest in global population growth, family planning, and the health of developing nations.1) Spurred by his experience as a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, which was beginning to work on population from the standpoint of food production, Rockefeller established the Council to address the more controversial fields of human fertility and contraceptive research.

In 1955, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund gave almost half a million dollars for general support to help the Council establish its footing. It continued to make substantial grants through the 1970s for activities including fellowship programs, family planning studies, and international conferences.

The history of the Council is rooted in eugenics. Its first president, Frederick Osborn, was a former head of the American Eugenics Society.2) In its 1957 Annual Report, the council explains that “the Council is increasingly in a position to contribute to the understanding and so, perhaps, to the solution of problems of world population growth and change.”3) The council runs its Center for Biomedical Research (CBR) out of Rockefeller University in New York.4)

The Population Council has a history of funding from Bayer, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, KPMG, the Markle Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).5) 6)

Its Board of Trustees has included representatives from AT&T, the Atomic Energy Commission, Brown University, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Chase Manhattan Bank, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, General Electric Company, Harvard University, the Milbank Memorial Fund, Mt. Sinai Hospital, the Rockefeller Institute, and Scripps Foundation for Research in Population Problems.

In 2015, the council convened a meeting on quality of care sponsored by the Packard Foundation, and attended by representatives from Abt Associates, Family Planning 2020, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Ibis Reproductive Health, ICF International, Jhpiego, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, MSI Reproductive Choices, O’Hanlon Health Consulting, Population Action International, PSI, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), University of North Carolina, and the World Health Organization.7)

1)
The Population Council. (2022). Rockefeller Brothers Fund. https://archive.ph/Ujl0L
2)
Horvath, A. (2015, January 20). Frederick Osborn: “birth control and abortion are turning out to be great eugenic advances.” Eugenics and Other Evils. https://archive.ph/09Uwu
3)
Osborn, F. (1957). Annual Report 1957. The Population Council. https://web.archive.org/web/20220501133413/http://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb5974338p/_1.pdf
4)
The Center for Biomedical Research. (2022). Population Council. https://www.popcouncil.org/cbr
5)
Population Council Hosts Second Annual Ideas with Impact Awards. (2015, October 13). Population Council. https://archive.ph/9FNqC
6)
Population Council, Inc. (2020, February). Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. https://archive.ph/byLak
7)
Summary report of the measuring and monitoring quality of care meeting. (2015). The Population Council. https://web.archive.org/web/20200803175946/https://www.popcouncil.org/uploads/pdfs/2015RH_MeasuringMonitoringQOC.pdf
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